Yahoo’s ban on work-from-home justified !!!

Work from home was always considered to be a widely debated topic among HR professionals. And in the recent events Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer abolished work-at-home policy. Suddenly this topic has again been in limelight and has been discussed from Board rooms to the office canteens. And not to forget even at home. So what is all this fuss about Working from home or not working from home? Let’s look at some of the aspects why some companies encourage this policy and some don’t.

IBM is one such company which I have heard loads of good things about this particular policy. Did you know that IBM had started this trend 10 years ago?Work from home new mantra for IBM employees post states the rough figures of employees working from home. So is this good, bad, ugly!!

Well for starters let’s try to figure out the reason for companies encouraging this policy.

– Space Crunch: It is a well-known fact that for some companies Infrastructure is a major issue and hence they prefer saving cost and end up encouraging Work from Home Policy.

– Women Employees: In some cases maternity leave would be a reason and hence this provides a flexibly to women.

– Promoting work-life balance: Well, some might not agree if this is right way to encourage Work Life Balance, but from some companies it might work.

Now time to look at the reasons why companies don’t encourage this policy:

– Issues in Tracking Productivity: Quiet often this is one of the major worry for all companies, as they find it difficult to track the productivity of an employee who is working from home. This might also reflect in the appraisals and then there is no looking back.

– Distractions from family and friends: Well this is something that again depends on how you handle the situation and if you have a separate work space at home, things might get a bit easy. But there is no escaping some amount of disturbance at home.

And to take it one step ahead the Yahoo memo reads, “Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home, we need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.” Do you agree with this!! Yahoo also states that face-to-face interactions among employees foster a more collaborative culture. Would you agree to this? Well one can say that the beauty of this policy lies in how the company manages its employees.

Well after all this huge issue, it will be interesting to see how the Indian Companies react to this situation. Will they just ignore this turmoil or go with the flow and come out with their respective memos. There might also be a possibility that Yahoo might need this policy right now, but as an when situation changes, they might be back to work from home policy. It will be interesting to see if they bring back the policy again. As always looking forward to your views on this dynamic policy. Does your company encourage work from home!! What would you do if your company stops this policy!! Well, my company does not have this policy, so looking forward to your opinion and feedback.